8.02.2008

The Grape and the Grain

While the conventional wisdom is that you should never mix the grape and the grain, when I ducked into Downtown this afternoon, they seemed against that. They were offering tastes of Lowlands whisky, and Australian wine.

Sizing it up for the Scotch was Auchentoshan Select, a mixture of unspecified ages, but likely around eight years or so. This was a light whisky, as the Lowlands malts tend to be. It had more in common with Irish whiskey to my palate than to its landsmen. They were also offering Glenkinchie 12. This was a reasonably Scotch, though it was a bit rough on its own. Lastly, they were offering the Littlemill 12. This was the best of the bunch, and actually quite tasty. However, given that the pricetag is double that of many amber spirits just as fine, it's a bit beyond my budget.

In addition, a brand rep from an Australian winery was offering his product. As I recall it was either Madison or Mason Hill. However, I could not find either in an online search. They were offering their chardonay, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, and shiraz. All the wines were quite nice, and, as I recall reasonably representative of their vintages. Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared to stop in, as I just ducked in to get out of the rain, so I couldn't take any notes. The wines seemed a bit high to my sensitivities, but as a Chicagoan, I still haven't really adjusted to Boston prices.